Is Asche Ready for The Show?

We all know that Cody Asche has had a strong 2013 season from an offensive standpoint — .293/.351/.460 with 10 HRs, 35 XBH, 45 runs, 56 RBI, and even 10 stolen bases in 91 games for the AAA-Iron Pigs — but the casual fan wants to know if his all-around game is strong enough to make him a mainstay at the big league level.

It’s true that Asche has made a fair few errors this year at third base this year for Lehigh Valley, but I think that number masks how good of a defensive third baseman Cody Asche really is.

When a third baseman makes plays deep behind the bag and throws out the runner, barehands a slow bouncer up the line or dives to cut a ball off in the third base-shortstop hole, it always goes down as a 5-3. The number’s don’t dictate how many balls a player gets too and makes the play on that most third basemen in the league do not make. That’s certainly the case with Asche. Sure, he makes some bad errors, but he also might make an error on an errant throw on a ball that there is no way he should have even gotten too in the first place. He might have 10 errors, but he also easily has at least 15 or 20 plays that other third basemen might not have made, so despite the error number being high, he is actually making more plays than most of the third baseman in the International League.

The other thing to consider is that this is only his second full season in minor league ball as a third baseman, and first at Triple-A, where the game gets even faster. He came from second base, where the ball is not hit to you as hard nor do you have a far throw to first. I think as he gets more and more time playing at third he will grow into it even more. Personally I think he is as close as you can get to big league ready in the field and at the dish.

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13 Comments

George

July 13, 2013 at 12:56 pm

Please back your opinions up with some statistics. I realize that defensive metrics are a little bit unreliable, but they are all we have. Credibility is improved when more objective aspects are included in the assessment.

Asche played third base throughout college, he only played second base as a experiment during his time at short season Williamsport. It wasn’t success, so the phillies moved him back to his natural position of third base. My point being, it is not a new position for him and expecting a major improvement doesn’t make much sense.

I agree. I think you bring him up and see what happens. Maybe his OPS won’t be as good as Young’s this year but he runs better. Let’s see what he can do at the major league level. Young has been doing better offensively lately but if the official scorer’s had done a better job, he would have about 15 errors now. Asche seems to be a prospect.

Possibly, but they’re not competing for the same spot yet, so no need to decide. Third is probably is his best chance for a successful career — tough to move to a harder position at 2nd, and may not hit enough for the corner outfield spots.

Even an average third baseman knows to eat the ball on a diving play where he has no chance to make a clean throw. Ashe has not shown that. His range is above average but he is not a good third baseman by any metric.

you cannot argue that his 10 errors shouldn’t be 10 because they are plays that usually dont get made because on such plays the scorer usually gives the hitter a hit. But even if the scorers are making bad rulings a smart (not even a good player, but a smart one) will not make throwing errors because they know when it’s appropriate to eat it.